Those Important First Pages

Sometimes you set out to do a thing for one reason … only to find it was so much more than you ever imagined. More than you could have actually planned. In this case, I learned just how much value can be wrung out of focusing on the first chapter and how it relates to...

Let’s Talk (Again) About Plagiarism

Me, I’m an editor. And a writer. I’ve been earning a portion of my living as a writer for decades. I’ve been a self-employed editor for more than twelve years. I have a lot of friends who are editors or writers. So when, back in January, Monica Crowley—an author and...

A Teachable Spirit

A couple-three years ago, I had lunch with an author friend who was in town for a conference. She is a speaker who often counsels beginning writers about craft and process, and that day we were discussing the finer points of teaching/editing grownups. “It’s all about...

Plagiarizing, A Quick Aside

Dear Author: If your sentence has the exact same structure as that sentence in WaPo, but you just change a word or two … it’s still pretty much plagiarizing. Just sayin’. No, really. Kindly, Your Editor No, really, y’all. This stuff is important. I know you’ve got a...

Whole-Picture Editing

I’m a pretty organized/obsessive person when it comes to work. I have systems to keep track of current projects, to file work that’s finished, and to keep an eye on tracked changes (I save every version, both incoming and outgoing). It helps me keep my sanity. I read...